Frederick Gilbert Bourne was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 20, 1851, to Reverend George Washington Bourne and his wife, Harriet Gilbert Bourne. He attended public school in New York and began working for the Atlantic Submarine Wrecking Company in 1865. Later, while working at the Mercantile Library of New York, he befriended Alfred Corning Clark, then president of the Singer Sewing Machine Company. Clark later offered Bourne a job, which he accepted, and he rose within the company, eventually becoming president in 1889. The Bournes maintained estates at Oakdale on Long Island and on Dark Island, New York, and frequently vacationed on Jekyll Island, Georgia. Frederick G. Bourne became commodore of the New York Yacht Club in 1903. He and his wife, Emma Sparks Keeler, had several children. Frederick Gilbert Bourne died on March 9, 1919.
Ralph Beaver Strassburger was born in Norristown, Pennsylvania, on March 26, 1883, to Jacob Andrew Strassburger and his wife, Mary Jane Beaver. He had two siblings, Elizabeth and Perry. He entered the United States Naval Academy in 1901, where he was a member of the football team. After his graduation, he served onboard the USS West Virginia and other ships. In 1909, he left the navy and worked for the manufacturing company of Babcock & Wilcox. He later held several diplomatic positions, including Consul General and Secretary of Legation to Romania, Bulgaria, and Serbia (appointed by President William H. Taft in 1913), and as a secretary in the United States Embassy in Tokyo, Japan. He joined the Navy League following the outbreak of World War I and he entered the U. S. Naval Intelligence Division when the United States formally joined the war.
In his later life, Strassburger maintained an interest in thoroughbred racing and kept a stable at Normandy Farm, his home in Gwynedd Valley, Pennsylvania. He also owned and published the Norristown Herald . He married May Bourne (1881-1975), Frank Gilbert Bourne's daughter, and had one son, Johann Andreas Peter Strassburger (b. 1916). Ralph Beaver Strassburger died in 1959.
From the guide to the Frederick Gilbert Bourne collection, Bourne, Frederick Gilbert collection, 1901-1918, (William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan)
